The Sharpest Rocks Lie Just Below the Surface
by attackfishscales
Summary: No one comes out of Lake Laogai the same person they were when they went in. Sequel to "Until the Walls Break Like Waves".


**Author's Note:** Written for redrikki on Tumblr as a reward for donating thirty-six dollars to HIAS, a charity that aids immigrants and refugees coming to the US and are fighting Trump's crimes against humanity. She wanted a fic set in the "Until the Walls Break Like Waves" universe.

This fic should be read after "Until the Walls Break Like Waves", or it probably won't make sense. Other drabbles and information about this AU can be found on my Tumblr (attackfish) at the tag: ""#Until the Walls Break Like Waves".

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The Sharpest Rocks Lie Just Below the Surface

Zuko's bedroll was gone when the rest of them woke, and him with it. When Iroh's eyes landed on that cold, empty patch of ground, he could feel his face freeze, the muscles locked in place, as if not only words, but any expression at all, would only fail to capture how he felt.

"We have to go after him," Katara exclaimed.

"No." He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "We can't."

"What do you mean? We have to, it's-"

And a surge of affection for her washed over him. "What would we do if we caught him?" he asked painfully. "Take him prisoner?"

"Why not?" Jet shot him a broad, cruel smirk. "It's not like he's on our side. Oh yeah, I forgot, you're Fire Nation too."

"You're not helping yourself buddy." Sokka came up behind Jet and threw an arm around his shoulder with a horrible fake grin. "Every time you open your mouth, it makes me want to do the exact opposite of everything you say."

"Hey maybe he should try suggesting the opposite of what he wants us to do next time!"

Sokka squawked indignantly. "Don't give him ideas, Toph!"

When Toph turned to Jet, her smile showed every tooth. "But if you do that, I'll be able to tell you're lying."

"So where would Zuko have gone," Katara broke in loudly.

"Where else?" Iroh sighed. "He has gone home."

"Isn't he supposed to be banished?" Sokka asked.

"Yes." Iroh hoped, foolishly he knew, that Ozai would simply send Zuko away again. Even putting him in prison would be preferable to what else Ozai could do. "But it is not that simple."

Toph, tiny, blind, powerful Toph, who never let anyone see her be weak, and hated being soft, came close and took his mangled hand with a squeeze. "You're scared of what his father's going to do to him, aren't you?"

Iroh nodded, words deserting him once more.

"Who cares about that?" Jet's eyes glittered with fury and frustration. "He's going back to the Fire Nation! He knows things! If we don't catch up with him and stop him, he's going to tell the Firelord what he knows, and we can't let him do that."

"He doesn't know any of our plans," Katara said with a careful glance at Iroh. "We haven't talked about them in front of him."

"And who made sure we didn't?"

"Oh shut up Jet," Sokka snapped, rolling his eyes. "You're not the only person here with a brain."

"Sure seams like," Jet shot back. "Like right now, seems like I'm the only person who remembers he knows the Dai Li's plans."

"Do you want the Dai Li to conquer the Fire Nation, Jet?" Iroh asked as mildly as he could manage. It wasn't that mild. Iroh could taste the sharp edges of the words as they left his mouth. "Do you want the Dai Li to have the Fire Nation army and navy, and ships, and weapons?"

Jet flinched. He clenched his eyes shut and swallowed. "That doesn't excuse what the Fire Nation did."

"No," Iroh acknowledged, pulling his hand away. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe. It hurt, just dragging air into his lungs. It hurt like fear always did. "Excuse me. I would like some time alone to think."

But Iroh couldn't think, not really. His mind just kept circling back to the one thought he wanted most to avoid, that there was no place in the world he wanted his nephew to be less than he wanted him within his own father's reach.

o0O0o

Iroh's fingers twitched convulsively in the water as it glowed blue around them.

"Can you move them?"

Iroh curled and uncurled his fingers to show her.

Katara smiled at the sight, keeping the water steady. "Is the pain getting any better?"

"They ache sometimes in the mornings, but it's nothing you should worry about, my dear."

"I'll keep working on them," she told him. "I'm going to try to fix that for you."

"If you wish." His hands spasmed, and Iroh sucked in a breath trying to keep quiet.

"We can stop for now," she said hastily, letting the water fall back into the basin she had brought in with her.

He wiped his hands on his blanket. "Thank you."

"And I'm going to send Toph in with your dinner," She hung in the door awkwardly.

"Thank you," he said with his best disarming smile. "Will you shut the door behind you, my dear?"

She smiled one last time at him before the door clicked closed.

The sun hung low in the sky. He could feel it, even if he couldn't see it. It warmed the metal skin of the ship. He could feel the heat radiating from the wall behind the wall hanging with the Fire Nation crest. Now that he was alone, it was hard not to pretend he was in his cabin on Zuko's little ship, searching the Avatar, that the Avatar had never awakened, and he could be certain his nephew's hunt was in vain.

The door burst open, and Toph stood on the threshold with what smelled like a bowl of fish and seaweed stew. "Okay, fair warning, Sokka and Katara's dad cooked it himself, and nobody wanted to say it to his face, but it's pretty awful."

Iroh laughed. "I'm appreciate the warning."

"And Katara wants you to practice holding things now that you can move your fingers some, so you get to hold the spoon." She grinned at him as she handed the spoon to him, but there was something under her false nonchalance. For all she tried to cover up the awkwardness, it was always there when she had to help him, as it had not been there with Zuko. Zuko had always been so quiet, so focused, and so used to it before Iroh had even been Iroh again. And so guilty. Zuko had always been that too, even when ut wasn't his fault.

Iroh held the spoon in his hand and tried to maneuver his fingers into something that would hold it steady. "That will be a nice change."

"Sure it will," Toph said sarcastically. "Don't worry, I'll hold the bowl so you won't spill all of it at once."

"No, just a little at a time."

"Exactly, old man, if you want it all over yourself, you're going to have to work for it." Toph came over to kneel on the bed next to him with the bowl. "Ugh, it is so not fair you getting a nice soft bed, while I have to sleep out on deck with a bedroll."

"The privileges that come with age," he laughed, dipping his spoon in the stew. She was so small, younger than Zuko had been when they first sailed away from the Fire Nation, and Zuko had been so young then. He swallowed his soup. It could be worse.

"Did you know I never actually met the Avatar?" she said. "I just ran away with Sokka and Katara came through my town."

"Would you like to stay here with me tonight?" he asked.

Toph put down the bowl to hug him.

o0O0o

The water was clear as they drifted downstream, Iroh and Jet's barge poles abandoned against the water barrels, full to the brim of fresh, clean water.

"Dad isn't going to be happy we're coming back without food," Sokka said morosely, as he laid out his bedroll.

"No, but we _are_ bringing back water, which is the most important thing." But it wasn't. The most important thing was that he was bringing the children back at all, safe to their father.

Katara bundled herself into her own bedroll. "Both of you hush up, I'm exhausted."

"I'm not surprised," he said with a soft smile. "You worked very hard."

It was times like this, listening to them murmur to each other as they slipped off to sleep, relaxed and easy in each other's company, that he felt most like an intruder.

As the stars began to shine above them, he made his way over to where the water barrels were lashed down. Jet had his grass stalk out of his mouth and was twirling it between his fingers. "You were quiet today. What did you think of your first Fire Nation village?"

Jet glared at him, but it lacked heat. "I didn't."

"Do you expect me to believe that?" Smiling wryly, Iroh sat down next to him. "Did it remind you of your own home?"

It was a cruel thing to say, and Iroh knew it. He wasn't surprised when Jet bared his teeth in a snarl. "What do you know about it?"

"A poor village, crushed by the might of the Fire Nation military, surely you can see the similarities.

Jet shot to his feet and towered over him. "It just proves the Fire Nation are so brutal they don't even spare there own."

"Ozai and his supporters spare nobody," he almost but not quite agreed. "Any more than the Dai Li do. From what I hear, you were willing to spare nobody to destroy your enemies too."

"That's different."

"Is it?" Iroh didn't smile. He wasn't happy. "You can try to keep telling yourself it is. I can't stop you."

Jet crossed his arms. The lost look he gave him, so full of anger and helplessness, was so painfully familiar.

"It isn't easy to learn that you can't look at someone and know whether they are your enemy ir not," Iroh offered.

"Oh yeah?" Jet's voice was rough and hollow, like he was trying to be angry, but didn't have the strength anymore. "When did you learn it?"

"Not as long ago as I would like," he answered honestly. "Come sit down with me. I brought tea."

"Of course you brought tea."

Iroh ignored him. "Katara cleaned the water up so nicely, ai thought I would use it to make us a pot."

"Okay old man, go get your tea set." Jet huffed bleakly.

Iroh reached into the at the back of the barge and pulled out his teapot, cups, and a packet of tea. Hands shaking with the strain, he lowered the teapot into the river. As soon as he knew Jet was watching, he bent a lick of flame to heat the water until it steamed. When Jet flinched but didn't say a word, Iroh held back a smile.

He poured Jet's cup before he poured his own. Fragrant steam rose from the surface of the water. Closing his eyes, he breathed it in before he took his first sip. When he opened them again, Jet was swallowing his own tea in one gulp. Iroh refilled his cup without a word, and sat back to enjoy his own.

o0O0o

He hadn't gained any weight since Iroh had last seen him, and as they embraced, his uncle could feel every bone digging into him. "Nephew, have you been eating at all?"

Zuko shook his head. "I've been too scared."

"I have been scared too," he confessed, his voice too soft for anyone but his nephew to hear him. "I have been so worried for you, about what your father was going to do to you."

"He didn't do anything to me," Zuko assured him, and it wasn't that Iroh didn't believe him, so much as he questioned what his nephew meant by anything.

He shifted his hands up to Zuko's shoulders and pushed him away just slightly, to give him room to look his nephew in the face. "You're still wearing green."

Zuko snickered wetly. "He didn't let me wear red."

Iroh pulled him back to his chest and held him as close as he could to keep him from evaporating. "You're back now. You're here."

"Yeah," and Iroh could feel his nephew's smile against his shoulder. "Uncle," he said after a moment, words muffled. "Can you move your fingers now?"

Iroh realized he was rubbing his nephew's shoulder with his thumb. "Katara has been helping me."

"Oh." Zuko picked his head up to look at his uncle's crushed hands. "That's..." He swallowed. "That's really really good. I'm glad."

He couldn't hold his nephew like this forever. He had to let go. It felt like the hardest thing in the world to drop his arms and let his nephew move back. "You brought the Avatar."

Blushing, Zuko nodded nervously. "I got him out during the eclipse."

Iroh beamed at him. He couldn't help it. "I am so proud of you. You came back to me, and you did the right thing."

Zuko blushed darker, shaking his head. His jaw jumped and his lips moved like he wanted to speak, but in the end, he didn't say anything.

"I am proud of you," he said again, and Zuko gave him a watery smile.

Standing at the edges, an almost impossible gulf of wet sand between them and either the young Avatar and his friends, Iroh and his nephew, or each other, hovered Toph and Jet. Reluctantly, he waved them over.

"You two should go meet the Avatar," he told them.

"We've already met," Jet said tersely.

"Don't you think it's time for you to meet again?" _And start over,_ went unsaid.

When he looked back at his nephew, there was something strange on his face, that Iroh didn't recognize.

Instead of going over to the Avatar with Jet, who had his back straight in the careful way of someone fighting to keep from hunching his shoulders, Toph flopped down on the sand next to Iroh. "So that's the Avatar, huh? I donno, I always thought he'd be kind of... more."

"He's twelve," Zuko said softly. "He will be."

Iroh glanced over at his nephew, at the way his eyes were on the young Avatar and his friends, the intensity of his gaze so similar to what it had been when he had hunted the child.

"Yeah yeah yeah," she said. "I should have known you wouldn't understand."

Zuko didn't say anything, so Iroh had to do it for him. "When the Avatar first awakened, my nephew thought he was just a child, and he is, but children grow op."

"Yeah but he doesn't have time to grow up," Toph hissed, for once keeping her voice down. "That's the problem."

Zuko reached across his uncle and put his hand through Toph's, holding tight.

o0O0o

"I already know a little firebending," Aang told him.

"From before the war?" Iroh said, careful not to sound too eager. Three elements in only a few months was an almost impossible task. Any head start they had would be...

"No." Aang fidgeted. "Zuko taught me some on the way here."

"Did he." Iroh turned to where Zuko was standing up to his knees in brackish water of the estuary. His robe was hitched up ro keep it dry, and his knobbly legs were so pale, they looked like they hadn't seen the sun in years. In one hand, he had a bamboo pole with twine tied to it, and a pile of cat-eels sat in a basket on the bank.

"Well... just a little." Aang shrugged. "Mostly just meditation and how to run the furnace on the war balloon. He had me practice making the fire bigger and smaller, and then keeping it the same size, which was definitely the worst part, and he kept making me breathe a certain way."

Iroh smiled so wide his cheeks started to hurt. "That is a _very_ good start, young Avatar. Show me how you keep a fire level."

Aang breathed in like a proper firebender and opened his hand. A bright yellow flame hovered just above his palm. It flickered in the coastal wind, and he furrowed his brow in concentration. "It's a lot harder out here with the wind than it was in the furnace."

"Yes," Iroh told him. "But you're doing just fine. Excuse me. I will be right back. I need to speak with my nephew. Keep holding it steady."

Aang shot him a confused look as he walked across the sand to the river mouth, but he ignored it.

He picked up the basket of catfish-eels just as his nephew yanked his pole up out of the water with another fat catch attached. As Zuko unhooked the wriggling creature, he turned around to put it with the others. "Uncle? Aren't you supposed to be teaching Aang now?"

"I was," Iroh called back to him. "Until he told me he was already someone else's student."

"That's redicul..." Then he realized what his uncle meant. "No."

"Yes, Prince Zuko," he insisted. "Come teach your student."

"I'm not a prince." The fish's struggles had finally begun to fade away, and it flopped weakly in Zuko's hands as he brought it to its fellows. "I was disowned six months ago."

Iroh smiled wryly. "I thought you were here because you had stopped listening to your father about things like that, Prince Zuko."

Zuko's face went blank and closed off, and he didn't reply.

Iroh held back a groan at the added weight. as his nephew dropped his prize into the basket. "Come, Prince Zuko. I will take these to Sokka and Katara, and you can get started."

"You're a better teacher than me," Zuko said expressionlessly.

"And I will be right there if you need help." He put his free hand on his nephew's shoulder. "But you have been doing just fine so far. I don't think you will need me as much as you think."

Zuko swallowed and walked across the sand, to where the Avatar stood, still holding his flame steady in the wind.

Setting the fish down in front of Sokka with relief, he turned back around to make his way back to his nephew and his student. As he drew close, he could hear Zuko saying, "We should probably start with some stretches. Then, I can show you the first Firebending form, the one all the other forms come from."

o0O0o

"I missed this," Aang announced, from his perch between Appa's horns. "Even when I was too drugged to remember anything else, I missed being in the air, with Appa. I thought I'd lost it for good."

"I lost my fire under Lake Laogai," Zuko said softly. "You know, when I was with the Dai Li."

"What does that mean?" Aang asked apprehensively. "How can you lose your fire? It's your bending. It's part of you."

Zuko sighed. "Yeah it's a part of you."

"I lost my fire too," Iroh admitted. "When my son died. I didn't bend again for three years."

Zuko sat up, startled. "I didn't know that."

"No." Iroh closed his eyes. "I made sure no one knew."

"How does a firebender lose their bending?" Aang asked again. "I don't get it."

"Firebending comes from the strong will of the bender," Iroh whispered, barely audible over the wind. "If a firebender loses their will, their sense of purpose, if they give up hope, their firebending will desert them."

"But you got your fire back, right? You can both firebend now."

"Yeah," Zuko said. "We did."

"Most firebenders believe their firebending comes from their anger, and their desire to win. This is what most firebenders are taught now as children." Iroh told them both. "But it doesn't have to."

"When your s-" Aang cut himself off. "When you lost your fire, is that when you figured out you didn't need anger?"

"No. I had known that for years." Iroh closed his eyes, and forced them open again. "And it isn't hard to be angry, or to wish to beat other people and cause them pain, when you lose someone you love."

"Yeah," he sounded troubled. "I know."

"You don't need to feel guilty for feeling that way," Iroh told him. "You can't keep yourself from feeling what you feel. All you can do is choose how you respond."

"Yeah, I know that too."

"You may feel that way again soon," Iroh warned. "When we reach the Western Air Temple."

"I went to the Southern Air Temple already." Aang said. "I know what I'm in for."

"The Southern Air Temple is worse," Zuko said, probably trying to be reassuring. "Whoever led the attack on the Western Temple at least got rid of the bodies."

Aang flinched. "Did you visit them? While you were looking for me?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

In front of them, the war balloon plummeted down before suddenly stopping and slowly rising. "We should probably switch with them," Zuko said softly. "Before they crash into the sea."

"Yes." Iroh straightened his shoulders. "Aang, do you think you can steer us close enough?"

"Yeah, okay, I think I can do that." Aang pulled on the reins, and appa grunted in response, the wind changing direction to inch them closer to the tottering war balloon.

When it came close enough, Iroh and Zuko leaned over the edge of the saddle and grabbed hold. Iroh smiled. "Do you want to trade places?"

"Do we ever," Sokka answered, scrambling into the saddle.

As soon as Toph, Jet, and Katara had joined him, Iroh and his nephew clambered into the war balloon and drifted away. "You will have to show me how to fly this thing, Nephew. I've never even seen one before."

"It's not that hard," Zuko told him. "Uncle... You said you didn't firebend for three years."

"I did."

"Did you..." Zuko fiddled with the furnace. "When I woke up on the ship, you started teaching me firebending, you could bend."

"Yes." Iroh squeezed his nephew's shoulders.


End file.
